Monthly Archives: May 2014

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[As Ahmed Akkari] explains in his book [My Farewell to Islamism] and a number of interviews he has given since last summer, the protests and mayhem were not spontaneous reactions from the Muslim community. Instead they were produced by a calculated conspiracy between a group of Danish imams and ambassadors from various Muslim countries, who decided not only to appeal to influential Muslim states and clerics in order to put pressure on Denmark, but also to call on brute force from terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Viva la Sriracha. The city of Irwindale, California, yesterday dropped its declaration that Huy Fong Foods, maker of the famous hot sauce, is a pungent “public nuisance.

“I will say that I believe that not always lawsuits are good for any business or any community. It’s not only hurtful but expensive. I don’t believe at this point that it was the right way to go,” said Mayor Mark Breceda.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. It took the threat of the factory leaving to another state (Hello Texas!) for these idiots to drop the suite.

Imagine you have a six-year-old son. A little boy for whom you are responsible. A little boy you would take a bullet for, a little boy in whom you search for glimpses of yourself, and hope every day that he will turn out just like you, only better. A little boy who would do anything to make you happy. Now imagine that little boy—your little boy—alone in his bed in the night, eyes wide with fear, afraid to move, a frightening and unfamiliar voice echoing in his head, afraid to call for you. Imagine him shivering because he hasn’t eaten all day because he isn’t hungry. His head is pounding. He doesn’t know why any of this is happening.

One of the most shocking studies of the rise in ADHD diagnoses was published in 2012 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. It was called “Influence of Relative Age on Diagnosis and Treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children.” Nearly one million children between the ages of six and twelve took part, making it the largest study of its kind ever. The researchers found that “boys who were born in December”—typically the youngest students in their class—”were 30 percent more likely to receive a diagnosis of ADHD than boys born in January,” who were a full year older. And “boys were 41 percent more likely to be given a prescription for a medication to treat ADHD if they were born in December than if they were born in January.” These findings suggest, of course, that an errant diagnosis can sometimes result from a developmental period that a boy can grow out of.

Today, many Americans keep their entire lives on their phones: family photos, emails, calendar appointments, Internet searches and even location history. Considered separately, each of these categories can reveal very private information. Taken together, they can present a pretty good picture of who you are, what you do, where you go, what you read and what you write. What protection does the Constitution offer them from suspicionless search by the government?

But the proposed measure to increase legal diversity is illegal because the president doesn’t have the power to grant one group of Americans the status of a separate government, she said.
“There is no constitutional basis for conferring such status, and Congress has repeatedly refused to confer this status,” said Carissa Mulder, a spokeswoman for two members of the federal Commission on Civil Rights.
“This seems to be yet another case of the Obama administration ignoring the law to achieve its policy objectives,” she added.

Frontline’s expansive report on the NSA in the wake of the Snowden leaks (United States of Secrets) has uncovered some rather amazing stuff about the agency’s mindset. The post-9/11 decision to deflect every question or concern with conjecture about how “thousands of lives” will be lost if its programs are rolled back or altered in any way continues to this day — rehashed in every government hearing and set of talking points since the leaks began.

Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Justice indicted five Chinese military officers for industrial espionage, accusing them of leading attacks on the computers of U.S. companies including U.S. Steel and Westinghouse to gather material to be passed on to Chinese companies.
The move puts U.S. policy in line with experts who have argued that only naming and shaming the perpetrators, and pursuing them through legal action, will rein in such attacks. Digital IP theft is now normal for U.S companies, although few victims disclose the fact.

Gwynne is apparently sick and tired of having the article rubbed in his face by “websites and individuals that dispute, disparage and deny the science that shows that humans are causing the Earth to warm.” Especially painful for him – it seems – was the occasion when his piece was triumphantly brandished by comedian and notorious skeptic Dennis Miller on the Tonight Show in 2006.

To avoid becoming a victim, security guard Greg Champion wears a handgun on his hip whenever he’s pumping gas.
“I don’t want to surprise you,” Champion said. “I want you to know I’m armed, and I want you to know I can defend myself, and I want you to go somewhere else.”
Christine Reed takes the opposite approach. The 27-year-old mother of two won’t stop for gas in Detroit. She lives north of the city in Warren and works four days a week cleaning offices downtown.
If she’s in a bad section of town, Reed said, she passes through red lights because it’s tougher to carjack a moving target.
“It’s not a safe place anymore,” Reed said. “It’s dangerous.”The state-appointed emergency manager tasked with restructuring Detroit’s $18 billion in debt has said crime needs to be reduced to make the city attractive to new residents and businesses.

Hiftar was once a general in Kaddafi’s army, but disagreed with the dictatorship and fled to the United States in 1990 with the help of the CIA. When the Libyan revolution broke out in 2011 Hiftar returned to Libya and joined the rebels. is opposed by a coalition of largely Islamic radical militias and politicians. Hiftar remained on the sidelines after Kaddafi was defeated and various attempts (culminating in the GNC) were made to form a workable government. Sometime in 2013 Hiftar apparently began planning a new revolution.

The Bebop features a 14-megapixel/1080p camera (as opposed to the 2.0’s 720p model) with a 180-degree field of view, that’s isolated from the copter’s vibrations by rubber shock absorbers. Additionally, a 3-axis digital stabilization system keeps the camera pointing in the same direction, regardless of subtle changes in the aircraft’s orientation or movements caused by wind. Footage and stills are recorded on an integrated 8 GB flash drive.

O’Keefe’s crew pose as a Middle Eastern potentate named “Muhammad” and his American ad executive. They approach the Tickells with an offer of $9 million to finance an anti-fracking film. “Muhammad’s” motives are clearly expressed: he wants to keep the U.S. dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and to that end he wants to stamp out fracking. The Tickells have no problem with this at all. They discuss the need to keep the film’s source of funding secret, and talk about how they can create a false impression as to who paid for it. You hear statements like: “We’re confident that we can keep this [i.e. the fact that the film was financed with Middle Eastern oil money] zip locked, you know tight, tight, air tight forever.” “If we don’t protect–who is kind of funding this thing, if we have to disclose that or that becomes a necessary part of it, the whole enterprise will not work. Because if people think the film is funded by Middle Eastern oil it will, it will not have that credibility. It will be nonstarter.”

“I am satisfied that recently the effigy has been used in a manner amounting to workplace harassment of an individual employee, intended to belittle and humiliate the president,” Shackell said in the statement. A university spokeswoman said that Shackell, rather than the president, would be speaking on behalf of the university on this issue; Shackell was not available for an interview on Tuesday.

Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, was quoted as saying, “I don’t think moving Bushmaster and their pistol line this early in the process to Alabama bodes well.” King went on to say, “I wouldn’t doubt it’s SAFE Act-related in a New York minute. The company made statements over and over again that when they bought the property in Huntsville, Ala., that having a manufacturing facility in a Second Amendment-friendly area means a lot to them.”

What people object to is the gratuitous slaughter of pets that pose no threat. Officers couldn’t shoot children with such impunity, and many pet owners love their animals almost as much as their kids.
That shouldn’t be surprising. A special bond between people and dogs has developed over thousands of years of domestication.
Recent work by Hungarian researchers has shown that dogs can read emotion in human voices and, as The Washington Post reported the other day, “other studies have revealed that dogs yawn when they see humans yawning and that they nuzzle and lick people who are crying; scientists consider both behaviors displays of empathy, a rarely documented trait in the animal kingdom.”
If dogs can read other species’ behavior signals and show empathy toward them, then surely police officers should be able to as well.

But the media win by selling pessimism porn. “People are much more interested in hearing about something that’s gone wrong,” says Ridley. “It sounds wiser to talk about what might go wrong than to talk about what might go right.”
Or what already went right. Over the past 40 years, murder dropped by 40 percent, rape by 80 percent, and, outside of war zones, Islamic terrorism claims fewer than 400 lives a year. The last decade saw the fewest lives claimed in war since record keeping began.
One unnecessary death is tragic, but the big picture is good news.
Our brains just aren’t very good at keeping track of the good news. Evolution programmed us to pay attention to problems. Good news often happens slowly. The media miss it.

"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." - Albert Camus

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